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Ardmore Ceramic Art Studio
Artists’collective, founded in 1985 / Based in Ardmore, South Africa

Jens Hoffmann (JH): How did Ardmore Ceramic Art Studio come to be?

Fèe Halsted (FH): In 1985 I moved to a rural farm in South Africa, called Ardmore, and inquired as to whether there were any local people who wanted to learn to make ceramic art. My first student was Bonnie, who had had polio and needed some way to make a living besides manual labor. Bonnie and I made little ceramic ducks and other sculptures and painted them with patterns, similar to Mexican ceramic painting, and sold them. It wasn’t long before our work was in some of the national galleries. In 1990 we were awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist Award. We started bringing in friends and sisters and other family members. That was the start of Ardmore.

JH: I find it fascinating that each sculpture at Ardmore is not the work of one artist, but passes through many hands.

FH: In the Western world, we are all what I refer to as “seagulls and lemurs”: mine, mine, mine, and nobody lets go. Clay is a process and a journey. All the time, even when you put a sculpture in the kiln, you are letting go, handing it over to  the elements. I think the Zulu culture is very generous, and this makes it really suited to the medium of  ceramics. At Ardmore, one person will throw a pot on the wheel or hand build something, someone  else will sculpt it, and then someone else will paint the work after it is fired. There is a culture of responsibility and respect among the artists, as everyone’s income depends on  the artworks that come out of the shop. When a sculptor is watching their work being painted, they never say, “What are you doing to my piece?” Rather, there is an enjoyment in seeing what happens, like sowing seeds and watching the field grow.

JH: Tell me about how this work relates to HIV and AIDS awareness, as this is very relevant to the 12th Istanbul Biennial.

FH: For a long time the government and the culture in South Africa had complex rules of silence surrounding HIV and AIDS. I found it absolutely terrible, not being able to talk openly about it even when some of my artists were getting sick. The artists did have some knowledge of how their behaviors were affecting their health, but were too embarrassed or fearful to communicate. I decided that we could express important ideas related to HIV prevention without needing to speak. Storytelling through art is very much a part of the Zulu culture. In the beginning the artists would use a monkey, or a frog—which is considered a tagati, an evil witch—to depict the disease. For instance they would show a doctor trying to put a needle into a frog. So, as a body of work, it began as something for the artists, but it is now being used in more far-reaching ways, for instance to educate schoolchildren.